A booking form due Friday
A brand rep sends the pre-season order form for next year. It lists every model in every size and colour, and it wants numbers. Last year you ran out of mediums in the popular gravel bike by May, and you still have two extra-large hybrids in a colour nobody wanted. You remember that, roughly. What you do not remember is how many people asked for a model you did not stock, or which sizes of which bikes sold at full price.
The form is filled in at the kitchen table from a mix of memory, an EPOS report and the rep's suggestions. You find out whether it was right the following spring.
The information exists, spread across systems
Your EPOS knows what sold and when. Your website knows what people looked at and what they searched for. Your staff know which bikes customers asked about. Your brand accounts show what is already committed. Nobody puts those together in the form the pre-season decision needs.
- EPOS reports show totals, not which sizes ran out and when.
- Discounted end-of-season sales look like successes in the totals.
- Customer requests for bikes you did not stock are not recorded.
- Website searches for models you do not carry are never looked at.
- Existing commitments to other brands are held in separate emails.
The cost of guessing
Getting it wrong goes both ways. Too few of the right sizes and you turn customers away in spring. Too many of the wrong ones and money sits on the shop floor until you discount it. We do not give financial or buying advice, and the decision stays yours. What we can do is make sure it is made with your own data in front of you.
Pre-season orders also arrive alongside everything else. The forms usually land in the quieter months, when owners are catching up on accounts, planning the workshop and dealing with returns. A decision that commits a large part of next year's stock ends up squeezed into an evening. Having the numbers ready in advance turns that evening into a review rather than an exercise in remembering.
A pre-season view built from your own history
We build a buying view that joins your data together.
- Past sales are pulled from your EPOS by model, size and colour, with the date each variant sold out and whether it sold at full price or discounted.
- A simple form on the counter and in the workshop records customer requests for bikes, sizes or colours you did not have.
- Website search terms and product views are included where your web shop provides them.
- Existing brand commitments are entered once, so you see your total across all brands before adding more.
- The view is laid out like the brand's order form: model, size and colour, with your own history next to each line.
- After the season, the same view shows how the order played out, so next year's decision starts from something better than memory.
| Model and size | Sold last season | Sold out | Requests not met |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gravel, medium | From your EPOS | Early in the season | Recorded requests |
| Gravel, extra large | From your EPOS | Did not sell out | None recorded |
| Hybrid, small | From your EPOS | Mid-season | Recorded requests |
A decision you can explain
Pre-season orders are still judgement calls, but they are judgement based on what happened in your own shop. Conversations with brand reps are easier when you can show them your sell-through. Staff know that recording a customer request feeds a real decision, so they keep doing it. And after each season you can see how close the order was.
Is your pre-season ordering based on memory?
- Pre-season forms are filled in from memory and a totals report.
- You cannot say which sizes sold out and when.
- Customer requests for bikes you did not have are not recorded.
- Commitments across brands are not added up in one place.
- You find out if the order was right only in spring.